Crone: A Witch's Tale

By Jae Mazer

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."  -- William Shakespeare

 

 

Drowning in a sea of despair and fear, young Abbey struggles through her childhood alone and afraid. She lives on an isolated acreage with a cold and abusive family, spending her time afraid and mi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Feathered Tentacle Press
• Release date: May 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732204218

Book preview

1

---

W e’re out of rolls.

Rolls. Bread. Harmless carbs, notorious for comfort, for dipping, for stuffing oneself during an already gluttonous feast.

But not these rolls.

Abbey? Would you?

These rolls meant descent. Abbey hated it down there.

Abbey toyed with the food on her plate, pushing it with the tip of a fork prong, stabbing individual peas and hearing them scream in her head. She could already feel the abrasive carpet beneath her pink, smooth feet, the transition to the splintered slats at the base of the journey below.

Her dad’s voice landed on her like a sledgehammer, a command on a single word.

Girl.

She shivered and placed her hands on the table, preparing to push back and perform the requested task. A dozen sets of eyes bored into her: her aunt, her uncle, the immediate kin…

But she didn’t stand. Her legs refused.

She’s fucking scared.

Anton! Watch your language, young man, Mother scolded.

Anton was the stereotypical older brother, beefy and pretentious, an angst-riddled jock with a huge frame and an even bigger bravado. Six years Abbey’s senior, he acted fifty years her wiser, and twice the cunt. She knew he was an idiot, and his jabs grated no flesh from her confidence, but she still recoiled at his words.

She’s being a fucking pussy, like she believes in the old woman, Anton said, chuckling through a mouthful of roast beef.

The old woman.

The tale Anton had been feeding Abbey since she was old enough to consider the possibility of monsters under beds and trolls under bridges. Now, at twelve years of age, her overt fear subsided, but still hid in the crannies of her mind.

Anton, quit terrorizing your sister, Father scolded, looking over the top of his plastic Roy Orbison glasses.

Sweetheart, you know there’s no witch under the stairs right? Mother said, slender hand grasping her daughter’s stiffened forearm.

Abbey knew there was no witch under the stairs. She forced herself to know. But she didn’t quite believe. So many trips down the stairs, phantom fingers groping at her calves, black eyes peering in the dark. Her brother’s incessant reminders of the witch beneath the stairs, waiting to get children who were sent to fetch extra linens from the laundry room or potatoes from the pantry. Dinner rolls from the cold storage room.

Girl, you ain’t bein’ told again.

The quiet strength in Father’s voice told Abbey that this was the final instruction before she would have to carry out the task with a tanned ass, regardless of the extended family seated around the dining room table. Abbey commanded her limbs to do their duty. She moved back from the table, side-stepping her chair and pushing it beneath her place setting. She hung her head, her hair a veil of protection to hide the terror clearly advertised across her face. The clink of silverware alerted her to continued life in the dining room, but voices remained silent, an awkward recognition of the black sheep leaving the flock. As she passed into the kitchen and away from judging gazes, she heard Anton snicker, and the whispering released like water from a dam.

… that girl …

… so immature for her age …

… she acts a fool. Must be on the spectrum …

… such a strange girl …

The words didn’t hurt. They never did anymore. The same scar slashed over and over again hurts less every time.

Abbey let the door close behind her, shutting her life behind. As she stood on the landing, the journey down seemed longer than ever, additional stairs appearing as she stared down into the black abyss. Her feet iron weights and muscles resisting, she grabbed hold of the rail and started the trek, the damp mustiness soaking into her bones with each step. The wood creaked, slicing the quiet of the dark, announcing her presence to the phantom predator in the space beneath the stairs.

Oh Abbey, Anton had said once during a rather aggressive bout of teasing. What if a twister comes? You know the safest place is under the stairs. It’s where we’d have to go to survive. Under there. With her.

The laundry room with the noisy sump pump and jumpy old washer also housed the space under the stairs. The fabled nest of the witch. Thankfully, the laundry room had a door, and a weighted door at that. Father had weighted the door ages ago to keep the cold air contained in that room during the winter months. Unless it was propped open, Abbey wouldn’t even have to look inside to verify the existence of the thing that wasn’t there. Didn’t stop her pulse from racing as her feet reached the last step.

Best way to approach the basement?

At a sprint.

Abbey loped across the concrete floor to the storage room door, ignoring the entire area at her left. After she was safely inside the storage room, she trotted to the back, into the cold storage, and fetched a bag of doughy dinner rolls. Without pausing to separate the approximate amount they might need, Abbey tossed the entire haul over her shoulder and turned to flee the basement. Her muscles relinquished their tight hold on her bones as she exited the storage room and saw the light on the stairs highlighting her escape route and the end of her plight. With a new confidence in her step, she walked towards the stairs at a more casual pace, scolding herself for her silliness.

Maybe they’re right, Abbey thought. I’m just a silly girl living in a silly world in her silly little head. Stupid child.

But then. The light.

The light caught her eye and stilled her heart.

Moonlight, the after-supper glow of a mid-autumn night, shining through the window and cutting through the dusty, yellowed glass like a stained flashlight. Through a window that should have been hidden behind a shut, weighted door.

The laundry room door was wide open, silently screaming at her, a toothless maw waiting to eat her alive.

Abbey?

A sliver of light appeared at the top of the steps, casting the shadow of another flavour of monster.

Coming, Uncle Herman. Abbey’s voice went up the stairs, but her eyes remained below, searching the dark beyond the impossibly open door.

Heavy boots clumped down the stairs, slow and steady. Abbey’s heart pounded in her ears, and she wasn’t sure if she should run up or beneath the stairs for safety.

Maybe a scary old witch isn’t so bad after all.

What’s the matter, girl? Uncle Herman said, his portly figure eclipsing the bald light shining over the stairs.

I’m glad we don’t have lights in the main room, Abbey thought. I wish to see neither witch nor warlock tonight.

Comin’ up so quick, darling? Uncle Herman said, propping himself against the wall and leaning in such a way that it would be impossible for Abbey to slip by him and up the stairs.

I mustn’t show fear, she thought. A dog smells fear and reacts in primal ways.

Got what I need, Abbey said, puffing her chest and walking towards Uncle Herman as if he didn’t make her flesh want to crawl straight off her bones. When she got close, she could smell his breath, a stew of tobacco and onion that made the meager contents of her stomach leap for her gorge.

No need fer bein’ in such a hurry, princess, he said, reaching out a clubbed finger and twirling it through a lock of her hair.

Father wants the rolls while dinner’s still on the table, I imagine, Abbey said.

Fear. He smells it.

What’s the matter, honey? he asked, taking a step towards her, close enough that she could feel the heat from his body. Instinctively, she backed away, and his boots followed her bare feet until her heels were against the walls and his boots against her toes.

I… leave me alone! I hate you! I hate you! I hate this, you, all of you!

She thought it, screamed it in her head, but nothing came out. Nothing but wisps of trembling air.

What’s that, sugar? Uncle Herman said, his voice a greasy whisper.

He wrapped his fingers through her hair until grasped in a fist, and leaned down until their lips brushed together when he spoke. Somethin’ wrong with that tongue of yours?

When he ran his tongue over the edge of her lips, she dropped the bag of rolls and closed her eyes. Her heart slowed and she held her breath. She felt nothing and everything, and told herself the trick was to just wait.

Just wait a minute, five at most. He hasn’t much time before they call down the stairs for us.

But nothing happened. Before it could begin, the laundry room door creaked, the fright of it sending Uncle Herman stumbling backwards, running a guilty hand through his thinning hair.

Who’s that? he blubbered, a shudder latching to his voice. I’s jus’ checkin’ on her. Slow simpleton. Jus’ a pack o’ goddamn rolls—

His clumsy defense was cut short when he turned and saw the upstairs door was still latched. His eyes trailed to the laundry room door, and the sliver of moonlight that had grown considerably more narrow in the past few seconds.

Abbey held her breath. Uncle Herman held his. But breathing persisted. It wasn’t loud—certainly you had to focus to hear it—but it was there. Raspy. Wet. Laboured. A panting…

Well then, Uncle Herman said, clearing his throat. Let’s get those rolls upstairs. Daddy be waitin’ on those. Quit yer dilly-dallying.

He didn’t look at her as he hurried across the room and back up the stairs. Didn’t check on her even once as he passed through the upstairs door, leaving her behind to the hands of the unimaginable. Abbey stayed put in the dark, relieved and terrified, panicked and curious. She picked the bag of dinner rolls off the floor and walked up the stairs, her eyes searching the moonlit sliver as she passed by the laundry room door.

2

The school bell rang, piercing through the fog in Abbey’s head. She was already at her desk—had she still been up, she risked walking by her peers, a herd of judging eyes evaluating her hair, her skin, her every movement. She wasn’t unpopular, but not popular either. Or liked. Or even noticed. What she was, however, was uncomfortable in her own skin. The feeling of her flaws pulsed like throbbing blisters, the plainness of her hair and clothing glowing like neon for all to see.

The dawn of puberty had made it infinitely worse.

Abbey had seen her first blood only a month before, and tried to keep it hidden from her family and friends. She didn’t want to be a woman. Her breasts were tender, tampons had replaced the toys in her backpack, and she had to use her spending money to buy Midol rather than books and pencils. And now she was self-conscious about getting up in front of her class or walking through the halls, certain that her peers would notice her bloating, her budding breasts, or a sneaky crimson leak through her thick jeans.

The students filed to their desks, papers shuffling and chit chat dying as the teacher pulled out her lesson plan and scrawled chapter numbers on the board. Books opened and pencils lifted.

Good morning everyone.

Good morning Mrs. Tyler, chimed a chorus of small voices.

Did we all bring the stories we wrote?

Abbey cringed. The story. She loved to write stories. No, stories wrote themselves. All day everyday as she lived in her own head. A fully functioning universe of many worlds and plenty of characters to create the community and family she craved. But the stories in her head and the ones down on paper were very different from ones that needed to be presented to the scrutiny of outside minds.

Abigail?

Abbey’s stomach lurched.

Me? she said, her voice a dampened whisper. First?

Yes, honey, Mrs. Tyler said, more pity in her tone than Abbey cared for.

Abbey grasped her scribbler with clammy fingers and slid out of her chair, suddenly quite conscious of the wrinkles in her dress and the tangles in her hair. As she walked up the aisle towards the chalkboard, she felt little eyes all over her body, on each freckle, each fold of her far-too-baby-ish ensemble.

Then her shoe—that tattered Mary Jane with the scuffed toes and the yellowed bow. That goddamn shoe with the floppy sole caught on the edge of her metal desk, swiping her feet out from beneath her. She fell without grace, smashing straight down and catching herself with her face, knocking a tooth out on the hard, wooden floor.

Abbey lay there, eyes fixed on the chunk of tooth laying on the floor by her face, a puddle of blood-tinged drool pooling beneath her cheek, the sound of whispers and giggles ringing in her ears.

Oh my goodness, dear, Mrs. Tyler said, clicking her tongue. You need to be more careful.

Not are you okay? or let me help you.

No hugs, no consolations.

You need to be more careful.

Abbey didn’t cry. She picked herself off the floor and scooped up her scribbler as Mrs. Tyler ushered her out of the room towards the nurses station. Abbey walked down the hall, but didn’t go see the nurse. She kept walking, out the front doors, into the sunshine and the fresh air and the freedom. She reached the road and sat on the sidewalk, waiting for the bus that would carry her from one prison to another.

---

Abbey scratched her pencil against the yellowed paper of her red journal, sketching lies of happy dreams that she never had in her head. She figured that’s what girls her age were supposed to do, draw pictures of kittens and rainbows and happy families holding hands. That’s what she did so they wouldn’t think she was crazy. Which she was.

Must be, she told herself. I’m not like others.

The autumn day was unusually warm and moist, a gentle humidity resting on her skin and fattening her hair. The sun had kissed her nose, leaving a skiff of coppery freckles across her pale complexion. The thin straps of her sundress irritated her shoulders, which had cooked to an uncomfortable shade of pink despite the thick slathering of sunblock she had doused herself in before leaving the house for the day.

Saturdays were the best and the worst. The best because she didn’t have to go to school, to be paraded in front of dozens of assessing eyes; she felt so suffocatingly alone while drowning in a sea of bodies. The worst because at home she really was alone, but a bad alone. Alone with a person or two, people more hateful than a hundred generic faces. Hateful, intimate interaction was in no way preferable to general, disconnected apathy.

But at least she had the outdoors. Outside the space was long and high, and the air clean and fresh. The old house was set on an expanse of land, with the nearest neighbours a good distance away on either side. The back border of the yard behind the house touched the edge of a forest thick with birch and pines and littered with deadfall; a terrain rarely traveled by much other than hooves, wings, and paws. Abbey often sat by that forest, leaned up against a tree, scribbling in her journal or nose in a book. She felt safe, lingering on the edge of two worlds, nature and civilization, not immersed in either; no expectations, no consequences. Just balance.

Abbey, honey, come clean up for lunch! Mother called from the back porch.

Abbey looked at Mother, standing there on the porch, wiping her hands in her tattered apron, her eyes heavy and face sullen and sagged. Abbey’s heart clenched at the sight of the matriarch of her household, defeated and empty, carrying out the duties of life as if moving through a side-scrolling video game.

She gave up long ago, Abbey thought. I wonder if giving up works. I wonder if it hurts less than trying.

Mother locked eyes with Abbey for only a moment before looking down at her cheap pedicure and shuffling back into the house. Abbey’s eyes were pulled to other movement in the yard. Her brother, sitting on the picnic table, finger dancing wildly across the screen of his cellphone, oblivious to the fresh air, the sunshine, the flora and fauna in his peripheral.

How grey a world his must be, Abbey thought.

And Father and Uncle Herman milled about in the long drive beside the house, covered in grease and sweat, beer seeping from their pores, hearty chortles and heavy hate hanging from their words. Disgusting jokes, no doubt. Abbey could see those words oozing like bile from their lips, dribbling down their chins like coagulated, black semen.

Abbey!

Anton’s eyes had left his phone. They were now pinned on her, his lips pursed into a scowl, arms folded over his barrel of a chest.

Mom called you, Abbey! Get yer ass in gear!

Abbey considered scowling back—flipping him the bird, even—but opted to dip her head into a nod. She hadn’t the energy to start the day with a battle. Anton rolled his eyes and stood, slipped his phone into his pocket, and made his way into the house for lunch. Abbey did not stand. Not immediately, anyways. She tucked her journal under her arm and placed her palms on the ground. She closed her eyes and felt the cool grass, the earth, and imagined sinking into that clay, the loam filling her mouth and nostrils, taking her away from all of this…

But she opened her eyes and stood, knowing full well a human girl couldn’t grow in the ground like a plant; she could not and would not sink into the ground, no matter how hard she wished it. She would need to go back to that house, for food, for shelter, to live out her days until she was old enough to get away.

If she got away.

Abbey started walking towards the house, dragging her feet and taking her time, when her toe caught on a stray root poking up and fell to her knees. Something sharp pierced the skin on her kneecap, and Abbey’s hand flew to her mouth to muffle the yelp of pain and surprise. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself while the waters were still calm. She rolled onto her bum and hauled up her dress to evaluate the damage. A long, white shard protruded from her skin, a dark trail of blood seeping around the wound.

Abbey panicked, the sight of her blood and bone making her woozy and nauseous. She plucked the white shard, and it slid out with little resistance. She held it up to her face, examining it, seeing the blood caught in the tiny striations. Smooth, wet, so tiny…

Not hers.

Abbey looked at the ground and ran her hands through the soil, sifting through grass and leaves and dirt until she found another chunk of white, smoother and rounder.

More bone.

Not hers.

Abbey rolled onto her knees, favoring the one with the tiny gash, and started raking her fingers through the dirt like a dog digging for, well, bone. She found a piece here and there, the fragments appearing more often as she crawled towards the tree line. She picked each piece like a treasure, setting them aside in a tidy little pile. Didn’t take long—just a few moments and a tiny skull—to realize that the bones belonged to forest animals; squirrels, mice, birds and the like. Each bone was bare, picked clean or flesh rotted from a lengthy stay in the ground.

So many bones in such a small area. Odd, that.

Her fingers didn’t search further. The trail led into the woods, off the soft grass and into the harsh tangles of the forest floor. Abbey could see the ground was disturbed here and there, perhaps anthills or mole tunnels, perhaps more buried bones. The brush was thick and braided, but beaten in a single track. If Abbey’s eyes hadn’t been drawn to the disturbed earth, she wouldn’t have seen the footpath.

She knew she had to go back. Go to the house, come because she had been beckoned, come because it was lunchtime and her family had commanded her presence. But curiosity clenched her gut, pulling her by the organs, drawing her into the trees. She walked, sandaled feet clumsy over heavy root and brush, following mounds and squirrel-piles of loose dirt. As she passed each one, she upset the piles with her toes, revealing stashes of little bones. She kept walking and the light grew dimmer, the sun filtered through a heavy canopy of trees.

So dark, she thought. So still. So quiet.

No wind.

It was breezy out. Surely she should have heard leaves rustling and branches creaking.

No birds.

No chirping, no falling flora from where talon and claw met branch.

Something is wrong.

She felt it, like ice cold water stabbing her flesh, the feeling of absolute solitude in the presence of a predator.

And then a hiss, a gurgling rattle, moist air expelled from thick lungs.

A grunt.

A throaty giggle in the woods, crawling up from the tree roots, through the soles of her feet and up her spine like icy, brittle fingers.

Abbey ran.

She ran fast as she could, straight out of those glittery pink flip flops she hated so much, straight through the branches and brambles that snapped her and cut her like razor blades on fishing poles. Dark warmed into the brightness of noon, and Abbey burst from the trees, careening at full tilt towards the house, the safe familiarity of abuse.

3

Abbey’s belly was full of pasta, so that was good.

She tried with all her might to enjoy the minutiae of life, the little things that tugged at the corners of her mouth. Food, fresh air, smiles from strangers.

Happiness was sparse, but it was there.

And the day was pert near over, so that was good too. Sleep was an amazing, involuntary respite from reality. Abbey felt most at home under her covers, closed off from the outside world. Oh, how she wished she could hole up there, in that Fortress of Solitude and Blankets with her many books and the occasional meal delivered by faeries.